Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell. It was a tremendous victory for freedom, and as such, on the 20th anniversary of that great day, President Obama… has better things to do:

US President Barack Obama has shelved his plans to attend festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will reportedly take his place at the Nov. 9 celebrations.

Germany is going to have to wait longer than expected for US President Barack Obama’s first official visit. Citing government sources in Berlin, Reuters reported on Friday that Obama will not attend the anniversary festivities marking two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The event will take place on Nov. 9 — just two days before Obama embarks on a long-planned trip to Asia on Nov. 11.

Don’t forget that Obama skipped visiting Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day because he “couldn’t fit it into his schedule” either (when he was already in Europe). The more astute observers may notice a common thread inherent in things the president does and doesn’t have time for.

Obama had no problem making it to Berlin for a speech during the campaign, but of course, he was the center of attention then and wasn’t going to be upstaged by a crumbled friggin’ wall.

Here’s the least shocking part of the story:

According to the German television channel n-tv, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will stand in for the president. It is considered unlikely that her husband, the former President Bill Clinton, will accompany her.

DUH! On every Berlin Wall anniversary Bill re-enacts that day by getting looped on Heineken, bricking up his pants and finding a bunch of oppressed German chicks willing to tear them down, so he’ll be understandably preoccupied.

The U.S. should have sent Ronald Reagan’s son Michael instead of Hillary. I’d rather see the U.S. represented by somebody with connections to why the wall came down than with the kind of political philosophies that built the thing in the first place.

Here’s Ronald Reagan in 1987 calling for Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” Within two years, it was torn down — and Reagan never won a Nobel Peace Prize, having made the fatal mistake of first earning it, which almost always precludes winning it: